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JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER, “BACK TO THE FUTURE-INSTABILITY IN EUROPE AFTER THE COLD WAR”, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, VOL. 15 No 1, Summer 1990, pp. 5-56.

The profound changes now underway in Europe have been widely viewed as harbingers of a new age of peace. With the Cold War over, it is said, the threat of war that has hung over Europe for more than four decades is lifting. Swords can now be beaten into ploughshares; harmony can reign among the states and peoples of Europe. Central Europe, which long groaned under the massive forces of the two military blocs, can convert its military bases into industrial parks, playgrounds, and condominiums. Scholars of security affairs can stop their dreary quarrels over military doctrine and balance assessments, and turn their attention to finding ways to prevent global warming and preserve the ozone layer. European leaders can contemplate how to spend peace dividends. So goes the common view.

As a result, the bipolar structure that has characterized Europe since the end of World War II is replaced by a multipolar structure. In essence, the Cold War we have known for almost half a century is over, and the postwar order in Europe is ended.

would such a fundamental change affect the prospects for peace in Europe? Would it raise or lower the risk of war?

I argue that the prospects for major crises and war in Europe are likely to increase markedly if the Cold War ends and this scenario unfolds. The next decades in a Europe without the superpowers would probably not be as violent as the first 45 years of this century, but would probably be substan­tially more prone to violence than the past 45 years.

This pessimistic conclusion rests on the argument that the distribution and character of military power are the root causes of war and peace.

Specifically, the absence of war in Europe since 1945 has been a consequence of three factors: the bipolar distribution of military power on the Continent; the rough military equality between the two states comprising the two poles in Europe, the United States and the Soviet Union; and the fact that each superpower was armed with a large nuclear arsenal.

The departure of the superpowers from Central Europe would transform Europe from a bipolar to a multipolar system. Germany, France, Britain, and perhaps Italy would assume major power status; the Soviet Union would decline from superpower status but would remain a major European power, giving rise to a system of five major powers and a number of lesser powers. The resulting system would suffer the problems common to multipolar systems, and would therefore be more prone to instability. Power inequities could also appear; if so, stability would be undermined further.

The departure of the superpowers would also remove the large nuclear arsenals they now maintain in Central Europe. This would remove the pac­ifying effect that these weapons have had on European politics. Four principal scenarios are possible. Under the first scenario, Europe would become nuclearfree, thus eliminating a central pillar of order in the Cold War era. Under the second scenario, the European states do not expand their arsenals to compensate for the departure of the superpowers' weapons. In a third scenario, nuclear proliferation takes place, but is mismanaged; no steps are taken to dampen the many dangers inherent in the proliferation process. All three of these scenarios would raise serious risks of war.

In the fourth and least dangerous scenario, nuclear weapons proliferate in Europe, but the process is well-managed by the current nuclear powers.

However, it would still be more dangerous than the world of 1945 - 90. Moreover, it is not likely that proliferation would be well-managed.

Three principal policy prescriptions follow from this analysis. First, the United States should encourage a process of limited nuclear proliferation in Europe. Specifically, Europe will be more stable if Germany acquires a secure nuclear deterrent, but proliferation does not go beyond that point. Second, the United States should not withdraw fully from Europe, even if the Soviet Union pulls its forces out of Eastern Europe. Third, the United States should take steps to forestall the re-emergence of hyper-nationalism in Europe.

None of these tasks will be easy to accomplish. In fact, I expect that the bulk of my prescriptions will not be followed; most run contrary to powerful strains of domestic American and European opinion, and to the basic nature of state behavior. Moreover, even if they are followed, this will not guarantee the peace in Europe. If the Cold War is truly behind us, the stability of the past 45 years is not likely to be seen again in the coming decades.

“The cities of West Africa are some of the unsafest places in the world. Streets are unlit; the police often lack gasoline for their vehicles; armed burglars, carjackers and muggers proliferate. Direct flights between the United States and the Murtala Muhammed Airport, in neighboring Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, have been suspended by the Us Secretary of Transportation because of ineffective security at terminal and its environs… In Abidjan, effectively the capital of the Cote d’Ivoire or Ivory Coast… an Italian ambassador was killed by gunfire when robbers invaded an Abidjan restaurant. The family of the Nigerian ambassador was tied up and robbed at gunpoint in the ambassador residence.”

West Africa is becoming the symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental and societal stress, in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real “strategic” danger. Disease, overpopulation, unprovoked crime, scarcity of resources, refugee migrations, the increasing erosions of nation-states and international borders, and the empowerment of private armies, security firms and international drug cartels are now most tellingly demonstrated through a west African prism.

There is no other place on the planet where political maps are so deceptive – where, in fact, they tell such lies – as in West Africa. According to the map, it is a nation – state of defined borders, with a government in control of its territory…

Fifty five percent of the Ivory Coast’s population is urban, and the proportion is expected to reach 62 percent by 2000. The yearly net population growth is 3. 6 percent. This means that the Ivory Coast’s 13. 5 million people will become 39 million by 2025…

It is time to understand “the environment” for what it is: the national security issue of the early twenty-first century. The political and strategic impact of surging populations, spreading disease, deforestation, and soil erosion, water depletion, air pollution, and possibly rising sea levels in critical, overcrowded regions such as the Nile delta and Bangladesh – developments that will prompt mass migrations and in turn, incite group conflicts – will be the core foreign policy challenge from which most others will ultimately emanate, arousing the public and uniting assorted intests left over from the Cold war.